Open Source IT Channel Learns to Walk

Written by The VAR Guy 1
July 14, 2008

Open source companies are finally getting on their feet in the IT channel, The VAR Guy believes. In fact, companies like Digium, GroundWork Open Source, Openbravo and Untangle are following Red Hat and Novell into the IT channel -- on a global basis. Here's a look at their progress.

Penguins Marching Open source companies are finally getting on their feet in the IT channel, The VAR Guy believes. In fact, companies like Digium, GroundWork Open Source, Openbravo and Untangle are following Red Hat and Novell into the IT channel — on a global basis. Here’s a look at their progress.

First, some background: During their early days, many open source companies didn’t want or need channel partners. Instead, they depending on direct sales as well as “community” members who assisted open source code development and product evangelism. That’s wonderful for a start-up. But growing up — and going global with localized support — requires VARs, integrators and managed service providers (MSPs).

Big open source companies (Novell, Red Hat) have revamped their partner programs in the past year to accelerate growth. Now, smaller open source companies are getting hip to the trend. Consider these developments:

More than 250 channel partners now support Digium — promoter of Asterisk, the open source IP PBX platform. And Digium has also signed up its first global distribution partner, to help accelerate Asterisk’s worldwide growth.
GroundWork Open Source, which specializes in system and network management software, has named Alan Cooke as VP of its global field and channel operations. GroundWork in October 2007 announced expanded partner initiatives and is starting to pull HP OpenView partners in its direction.
Openbravo, which specializes in open source ERP (enterprise resource planning) and POS (point of sale) solutions, launched a global partner program in April, and hosted its first US partner event in June.
Untangle’s partner program for MSPs continues to grow rapidly and the company is signing partnerships with MSP platform providers like N-able. Untangle focuses on network security solutions built around open source.

Another key trend here: These are global — rather than regional or country-specific — partner programs.

When it comes to going global, open source companies have a distinct advantage over closed source software rivals. The reason: While closed-source companies pay millions of dollars and spend months to re-write applications for specific regions and territories, open source companies can depend on their global community members to do that type of localization work.

In fact, many open source VARs are actually local developers who have fine-tuned applications for specific countries or languages.